Coragio
by Menolly Mark
Summary: Oneshot. Post HBP. Alastor Moody finds an old photograph, and decides to show it to a longtime friend at the Three Broomsticks. Nostalgia was more than he bargained for.


**Coragio**

By Menolly Mark

The few people in the Three Broomsticks went eerily silent, and turned to stare as Alastor Mad-Eye Moody came stumping into the tavern. They tended to do that whenever he made an entrance, but it wasn't, thought Moody darkly, his bloody fault if they couldn't get used to the sight of him. He glared at the onlookers, and they all immediately found something to do with themselves which required their full attention.

Moody slumped onto a stool at the bar, and rested both of his battle-scarred hands on the counter. After a moment's wait, Madam Rosmerta wended her way over to him around a young wizard who was fidgeting nervously with a couple of flasks behind the counter. "Haven't seen you in some weeks, Alastor," she remarked conversationally, wiping her hands on he apron. She glanced back at her helper, who was now goggling open-mouthed at Moody, and gave him a stern look, which said very clearly to close his mouth and get back to work. "What can I get for ya?"

"Large firewhiskey," muttered Moody, "and make it yourself, don't let anybody else muck around with it." He gave the boy a significant look.

Rosmerta rolled her eyes. "I've told you once and I'll tell you a hundred more times, Alastor," she said, "there is absolutely nothing to be worried about from anybody at the Three Broomsticks. No one here is trying to kill you."

"That so?" asked Moody, his magical eye spinning up towards the ceiling, and then tilting to regard the people at the next table out of the side of Moody's head. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you experienced some tampering yourself recently. Almost cost some lives, if I recall."

Rosmerta flushed, and slammed the flagon of firewhiskey down on the counter in front of Moody, not looking at him. He smirked, knowing that she didn't like to be reminded of the days when she'd been operating under the Imperius curse, and had tried repeatedly to murder Albus Dumbledore, whom he knew she had always greatly respected and admired.

"Will that be all for you, then?" she asked, a bit sharply.

Moody nodded, and took a long pull of his drink. "Yeah. Cheers, Rosmerta." Glancing down at the whiskey, he thought better of drinking it, and reached into the pockets of his robes, pulling out a small packet, which he tore open. Upending the packet into the drink, he watched as a light brown powder poured into the glass, covering the firewhiskey with a slight film. Rosmerta raised an eyebrow at him.

"What's that?" she asked, curiously.

"Bezor powder," he told her, stirring the stuff around in his glass with one finger, before lifting it to his lips again. "Gets rid of any poisons that might be lurking in the glass."

Rosmerta let out an exasperated breath, but, though she looked furious, she didn't say anything. Leaving Moody alone for a moment, she crossed over to the other side of the counter to speak with a large, blunt-nosed witch in a purple cloak. Moody regarded the bezor powder in his flagon thoughtfully for a few moments, and then drained his drink, slamming the cup back on to the counter with a satisfied thunk.

"I don't suppose I can ask what you've been up lately, can I?" asked Rosmerta, returning to him with two glasses in each hand. She began to pour drinks with one hand, while she ran a cloth along the length of the counter with the other.

Moody shrugged. "Nothin'," he said. "Nothin' worth speaking of, anyway."

"Nothing worth speaking of, or nothing that you're able to share with me?" she persisted.

Moody frowned. "Whatsit matter to you what I'm up to anyway?" he asked her. "Not entirely sure what you're acting so offended about."

"Of course you aren't," Rosmerta said, but very quietly, so that Moody couldn't be entirely sure he'd heard her correctly. He leaned forward over the counter, and she, shook her head expressively, looking up at him. "I take an interest, that's all," she added simply. "I like to know where my old friends are. It's not an unreasonable thing, really…but of course, I'm not to be trusted." She frowned balefully down at the glass in her hand, as if it was responsible for this lack of faith on Moody's part.

Moody snorted. "Nobody is," he insisted. "So don't take it personally, Rosmerta. There's no time for trust in this day and age…actually, not sure if there ever was. If we trusted a bit less, and were a bit more careful, maybe we could have avoided this whole fiasco with His return."

"Fiasco," murmured Rosmerta. "That's an interesting way to put it." Passing a butterbeer across the counter to a young wizard, she sighed. "But I can't see it your way, Alastor. Why, if we just decided not to trust anyone, we'd all fall apart. People need faith, people need to believe that they can confide in each other. We wouldn't have any personal relationship stability without that faith."

"Works for me," growled Moody. He hated it when she got preachy like this. He was more than fifteen years her senior; she didn't have to lecture him in the lessons of life.

Rosmerta laughed mirthlessly. "Yes, well," she continued, "I'm afraid the rest of us aren't quite as worldly and cynical as you are. I'd call it a blessing."

"Yeah," he muttered, "maybe so, but what can you do? You live, you learn. Yeah, actually, that reminds me." Reaching into his robes a second time, he pulled out a crumpled photograph, and smacked it down on the counter next to his empty flagon. Rosmerta, in the process of refilling a brandy, glanced at it out of the corner of her eye.

"What's that, then?" she asked, finishing with the brandy and moving over for a closer look. Moody jabbed a finger down at the two people who were grinning up at them from the photograph. One of them was clearly himself, much younger, before the first war against Voldemort. The other was a very pretty girl, who looked young enough to still be in school, or to have just graduated. She had long, curly blond hair, which she'd done up with roses and sparkling hair bands. The hairpieces shimmered merrily out of the photo at them. Rosmerta's jaw dropped, and she stared at the two figures. "Where…where did you find that old thing?"

Moody shrugged. "Lying around at home somewhere," he said, unhelpfully. "We don't look half bad in this one, do we? Wish I hadn't ever worn that stupid jacket, though," he mumbled, glowering at the emerald green embroidered jacket that the younger Moody was proudly sporting in the picture. "Ugly, gaudy thing…very conspicuous. And you," and now he gestured at the young woman, "you don't really look much different now, come to think of it." He glanced up at Rosmerta, remarking her still luxurious blond hair, and she blushed, looking away from him.

"I don't' remember that," she said, sounding forcedly airy. "Where was that one taken?"

"Florence," replied Moody, after a moment's thought. "Vacation in Florence, just before we formed the Order for the first time. You'd just graduated from school, I think. We were celebrating."

Rosmerta smiled. "Oh, yes," she said, "now I remember. I really did like Florence, it was beautiful there. I wanted to spend the whole trip at the Academia Magico dell'Arte, but you just wanted to see the Medici tombs." She rolled her eyes. "I couldn't tear you away from there, and you kept me up telling ghost stories about the Medici family and their wizarding kin until my eyelids couldn't stay open any longer. Gruesome ghost stories, too."

"Yeah," agreed Moody, with a grin. "That was a good time."

Picking up the photo, Rosmerta raised an eyebrow as the younger Moody in the picture gave her a very amorous look. The young Rosmerta alongside him smacked him on the arm, and the young Moody looked slightly abashed. Older Rosmerta burst out laughing, and gave Moody back the photograph.

"How times change," she murmured, still smiling. "You were quite the charmer, Alastor, you and Albus both." Sighing, she shook her head, a bit sadly. "Sometimes I wish I was a photograph…then I could stay young and beautiful forever, and nothing would ever get worse. We could always be that happy. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"No," growled Moody, "no it wouldn't. You'd get bored with it all real quick, being static like that. Would take all of the fun out of living." He tucked the picture back into his pocket, and took his time pushing it down so that it settled at the bottom, suddenly unwilling to meet Rosmerta's gaze. When he did look back up at her, she was gazing at him with a faintly sympathetic half-smile that made his stomach turn unpleasantly.

"I didn't get bored of you, Alastor," she said gently. "You know that, don't you?"

"Whatsit matter," grumbled Moody. "'S been years since Italy. We're adults now, we've learned to-!"

"I haven't," interjected Rosmerta. Moody didn't understand what she meant by that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He was starting to wonder why he'd brought the photo to show her in the first place. He should have known she'd be all sentimental about it, nostalgic and sympathetic. He didn't have time for any of it. He'd just thought she might like to see it. He hadn't even remembered that the photo existed.

"Do you remember," asked Rosmerta, cutting into his thoughts, "what I used to say to you when you'd leave for Order meetings, after we got back from Italy?"

"Coragio." Moody stifled a smile as he thought about the way that she'd bid goodbye to him each time he'd left to join the gathering of wizards who had banded together to fight Voldemort the first time he'd come to power. "It's courage in Italian."

"It certainly is," she replied. "Glad to see you haven't lost all of your Italian, then."

Moody rolled his magical eye around so that it faced her, unblinking and electric blue. "I speak seven different languages, Rosmerta," he said. "Comes in handy for someone who's got to travel, like me. Picked up Romanian from that Weasley boy, even. Italian's in there somewhere."

Rosmerta nodded. "All the same, she said, "I'm glad you remembered that language in particular. I have a soft spot for Italy."

"You're one big soft spot," retorted Moody, but Rosmerta didn't seem offended by the comment. She just continued smiling, and took Moody's glass off of the counter top, refilling it almost absently, biting her lip in thought.

"And when I got upset that you were leaving," she continued, as if Moody hadn't spoken, "you used to tell me 'pazienza,' so that I'd have patience. You said that you'd always make sure to come back, so there was nothing for me to worry about. Now you're going around saying that there's everything to worry about."  
Moody took a long swig of the refill that Rosmerta passed him. "It's different, now," he insisted. "You've said it yourself. I'm different now, and so are you. We've both learned that it isn't all going to be okay, just because we say it is. There's a lot of destruction out there, Rosmerta, a lot of evil. That's what I'm here for, that's what the Order's here for; to try and stop the evil from getting close enough to wreak havoc on everything. But you and I both know that it's not a done deal. We might all die."

"You're so optimistic, Alastor," murmured Rosmerta, but she didn't roll her eyes.

"Whatever." Moody swung himself awkwardly off of the edge of the stool, landing first his good leg, and then his wooden one on the floor before straightening up and grasping the countertop for support. "Cheers, Rosmerta," he said again, inclining his head brusquely at her. "Good seeing ya."

"Are you off to…to the Order, then?" she asked, frowning slightly.

Moody nodded. "Keep your damn voice down," he hissed. "Everybody in the place doesn't need to know where I'm off to."

"Sorry." Rosmerta held out a hand, palm up, and Moody stared at it blankly for a moment before he realized what the gesture meant. He reached out and gave her small hand a brief squeeze with his own, before turning around and starting towards the door.

He could feel Rosmerta's eyes on his back as he made his way towards the entrance to the tavern. Just as he put one hand on the door and prepared to push it open, he stopped, and, turning around, gave Rosmerta a curt wave. "Coragio," he murmured.

Rosmerta looked away . "Pazienza."

Moody left the Three Broomsticks, and staggered out into another empty Hogsmeade night.


End file.
